Caspar David Friedrich

Lore & Background

Caspar David Friedrich was born in Greifswald on the Baltic Sea, then part of Swedish Pomerania. He was the sixth of nine children raised in a strict Lutheran household; his father was a candle-maker and soap boiler. Friedrich experienced multiple family deaths in childhood, including his mother when he was seven, and witnessed his younger brother drown through ice at age thirteen. He began formal art study in 1790 under Johann Gottfried Quistorp at the University of Greifswald, where he was encouraged to sketch from life and influenced by theologian Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten, who taught that nature was a revelation of God. Friedrich later studied at the Academy of Copenhagen from 1794 to 1798, copying antique sculptures and drawing from life, and was exposed to 17th-century Dutch landscape painting and the Sturm und Drang movement.

Friedrich settled in Dresden in 1798. He initially worked in ink, watercolor, and sepia, producing etchings and woodcuts, but did not work extensively in oils until his reputation was established. His landscapes were inspired by frequent trips to the Baltic coast, Bohemia, the Krkonoše, and the Harz Mountains. He won a prize in 1805 at the Weimar competition organized by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe for two sepia drawings. His first major painting, Cross in the Mountains (the Tetschen Altar), completed in 1808, sparked controversy when art critic Basilius von Ramdohr challenged the use of landscape in a religious context. Friedrich responded with a rare written interpretation of his work. He was elected to the Berlin Academy in 1810 but applied for Saxon citizenship in 1816, which he attained with help from a friend.

Reader's Guide

Friedrich's work brought him renown early in his career, with contemporaries such as the French sculptor David d'Angers noting he had discovered 'the tragedy of landscape.' However, his art fell from favor during his later years, and he died in obscurity. As Germany modernized in the late 19th century, Friedrich's contemplative stillness came to be seen as a product of a bygone age. A renewed appreciation began in 1906 with an exhibition of thirty-two of his paintings in Berlin, influencing Expressionist, Surrealist, and Existentialist artists. The rise of Nazism in the early 1930s saw a resurgence in his popularity, but this was followed by a sharp decline as his paintings were associated with German nationalism. Since the 1970s, Friedrich has experienced a major international revival and is regarded as one of the most important artists of German Romanticism and a national cultural icon. Art historian Christopher John Murray described the diminished scale of human figures in Friedrich's landscapes as directing the viewer's gaze toward their metaphysical dimension.

Did You Know?

• Friedrich was born in Greifswald, Swedish Pomerania, on the Baltic coast.
• He witnessed his younger brother drown through ice on a frozen lake when Friedrich was thirteen.
• He won a prize in 1805 at the Weimar competition organized by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
• Friedrich's first major painting, Cross in the Mountains (Tetschen Altar), was completed in 1808 and sparked controversy over using landscape in a religious context.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th century German painter, considered by many critics to be one of the finest representatives in Europe of the art-movement Romanticism." — Caspar David Friedrich "The beauty, the spirit of Germany, its sun, moon, stars, rocks, seas and rivers can never be expressed this way.." — Caspar David Friedrich "If a painting has a soulful effect on the viewer, if it puts his mind into a soulful mood, then it has fulfilled the first requirement of a work of art. However bad it might be in drawing, color, handling, etc." — Caspar David Friedrich "So often death, perishing and the grave?" — Caspar David Friedrich